Until recently, the addressing of envelopes in a business environment created no particular difficulty. An envelope was merely placed in a typewriter and the address typed. With the advent of automatic typewriters, this became even easier. After the envelope was inserted in the typewriter, the address as it appeared on the letter was "selected" and automatically typed onto the envelope. Increasingly, however, letters are being "typed" on computers which are coupled to laser printers rather than impact printers. Unfortunately, present day laser printers are not well suited for printing on envelopes. There is typically no bin available for envelopes on a laser printer so that they must be fed by hand, a particular problem when laser printers are centrally located and shared by a work group. Also, in order for an envelope to fit in a laser printer and/or to feed properly without skewing, it must be fed lengthwise, which requires that the address information print in "landscape" orientation (90.degree. to the text on the accompanying letter). The styles available for "landscape" printing are usually very limited and more often than not, the address must be printed in a style and/or size different from the letter itself. Thus, addressing envelopes has become a problem.
One solution to this problem, of course, is to have an ordinary typewriter available to type addresses. This solution is not satisfactory, however, since the space around secretarial desks is usually at a premium, and matching typestyles is difficult. Feeding sheets of adhesive-backed labels through a laser printer is not a practical solution either, since a single address label is too small to feed properly and it is usually inconvenient to collect and print a number of addresses simultaneously on a sheet of labels. Using adhesive-backed labels is particularly inconvenient when the printer is shared and is not located at the user's desk. Prior to the present invention there did not seem to be a good solution to the problem.
The invented Image Transfer Label provides a fast and convenient way of applying an address to a business envelope where the original letter is produced by a laser printer or some other similar printing system, such as a xerographic reproduction system.